Earth has surpassed 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) of warming in a 12-month period for the first time since scientists began measuring global temperatures.
Scientists called this news a “warning for humanity” on Thursday, when the measurement was announced by the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).
Last year was the hottest year on record, and scientists suspect that El Niño and global warming combined to make this the hottest year in 100,000 years.
This figure of 2.7 degrees, which covers February 2023 to January 2024, was compared with temperatures from the pre-industrial period, the era that ended around 1900.
If energy production around the world doesn’t shift from fossil fuels to renewable sources, this trend will worsen, climate scientists say.
Forest fires in Chile have killed at least 122 people this month. They are believed to be the deadliest in the country’s history
Global warming projections depend on the quality of available data, and always contain some degree of uncertainty. There is therefore a poor overview of which of these have and which have not come true.
Some have become reality, including ExxonMobil’s decades-old projections about the role of fossil fuels in global warming.
Others have not, such as Paul Ehrlich’s 1970 prediction that 100 to 200 million people per year would starve to death by 1980.
It remains to be seen which of the dire predictions for the future of our planet will come true.
In the Paris Climate Agreement, scientists identified an increase of 2.7 degrees as the average temperature increase that Earth must not exceed.
They warned that passing this point will cause irreparable damage to the planet and future generations of people.
Record-breaking rainfall led to multiple major floods in New Zealand in 2023, destroying property and claiming lives
The new milestone is an important threshold, but scientists have pointed out that this one-year average does not mean Earth has definitively crossed the line; global averages are measured in decades, not a few years.
Nevertheless, 2023 was the warmest year on recordand last month was the warmest January on record.
“Rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions are the only way to stop the rise in global temperatures,” said Samantha Burgess, deputy director of C3S. told the South China Morning Post.
These trends may be longer lasting, but the effects of the heat are clearly visible.
Catastrophically low cocoa bean harvests in West Africa, caused by historic drought, have sent the product’s prices soaring
The past year brought a wave of natural disasters, many of which can be directly linked to climate change: floods in New Zealand, droughts in Spain and forest fires in Chile. And the list goes on.
“We’re hitting 1.5 degrees Celsius and we’re seeing the costs, the social costs and the economic costs,” says Johan Rockstrom of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research told AFP.
In addition to the destruction of crops and property, these disasters are deadly. So far, more than a hundred people have died in the fires in Chile.
“1.5 is a very big number and it is hurting us a lot in the form of heat waves, droughts, floods, enhanced storms and water scarcity around the world,” Rockstrom said. “That’s what 2023 has taught us.”
And the signs don’t look much better for 2024.
Storm Ciaran destroyed crops in Western Europe in October and November, leaving farmers uncertain about their future
Scientists give this year a one in three chance of being hotter than last year, and a 99 percent chance of being among the five warmest years on record.
To be sure, the record warmth of 2023 came not only from long-term global warming trends, but also from some shorter-term events.
For example, the naturally occurring El Niño weather pattern caused droughts that devastated cocoa crops in West Africa and sent global chocolate prices soaring.
Even as this weather event subsided, average sea surface temperatures were higher than ever recorded in January.
And some of the science remains uncertain, with a recent study of sea sponges suggesting Earth has already crossed the 2.7 degree threshold – four years ago.